The Other Name in My Phone (Secret Love)

Lyrics

It’s not saved under a code word.
It’s not disguised as the pizza place.
The danger is right there in the open.
Saved under the name of the lesson.

Paris, eleven-fifteen.
Canon Fulbert’s house on the Île de la Cité.
He brings in the finest mind in France, a man named Abélard,
to teach his brilliant niece, Héloïse.
The lessons begin.
Philosophy, theology.
Under the pretext of study.
Fulbert hears the murmur of Latin from the study and smiles.
He doesn't hear the silence between the words.

This is the secret opportunity the passion craves.
The book is open, but the lesson is the touch of a hand on a page.
The argument is dialectic, but the conclusion is a glance held too long.
This is the other name in the phone.
The one you call in public.
The one that means everything else in private.

Late nights. The smell of beeswax and old parchment.
Her arguments against marriage, so sharp, so clear.
She would rather be his mistress, she said,
than a wife who would dull the edge of his career.
A progressive stance for the twelfth century.
A devastating one.
He wrote that their hours were spent not in study,
but in the delights of love.
The lecture was just the room they built to hide in.

This is the secret opportunity the passion craves.
The book is open, but the lesson is the touch of a hand on a page.
The argument is dialectic, but the conclusion is a glance held too long.
This is the other name in the phone.
The one you call in public.
The one that means everything else in private.

And then the lesson is learned by everyone.
A secret journey to Brittany in the damp cold.
A son is born, named Astrolabe.
And upon their return, a secret marriage.
But Fulbert's pride is a blade.
And Abélard pays a price in blood.
And the lesson is over.
And the room is gone.

All that's left are the letters.
Decades of them.
Proof of the lecture.
Proof of the real lesson.
The ink on the page,
like a name in a phone,
hiding the world that was.
Just a name.
Héloïse.